The Computer Kerfluffle
by MaidenMoonshine
Summary: Abby and Tim refurbish a computer as a birthday gift for Gibbs. Unfortunately, some things do not work according to plan. Trouble, trouble, trouble!


**Hi, everyone! I hope that you are having a great day! **

**Today, fiftyshadeswritergal and I are doing something new. As most of you know, we regularly exchange prompts. Lately we decided to try both writing some of the same prompts and then comparing stories. So, today, we are presenting one-shots based off of the same prompt. This time, it was my prompt, although the stories based on her prompt will be up at some future time. (And not to give away anything, but fiftyshadeswritergal gave me an awesome prompt with which to work!)**

**Prompt: Tim and Abby give Gibbs a computer that they have salvaged and refurbished. They decided that it would make the perfect birthday gift. How does Gibbs react? **

**Make sure to read fiftyshadeswritergal's version of this story. I think that it will interest you how differently two people can interpret one prompt. For now, let's see how Gibbs embraces technology ... or does he? **

...

"Oh, Timmy, it's perfect!" Abby sighed happily, bouncing up and down and clapping her hands lightly.

"It is!" Tim agreed with a grin.

"It's a such a beautiful baby!"

"And we did it all by ourselves!"

"That sounds weird!" Tony called from the door. He sauntered into the lab. "What are you two nerds talking about?"

"Who are you calling a nerd? I'm a scientist! Tim's the nerd!" Abby protested with a playful grin as she ran over to grab Tony's hand. She dragged him over to the table where Tim was admiring their work of art.

"Uh ... all I see is a computer," Tony noted with confusion.

"Yes! Isn't it wonderful?!"

"I love it." Tim stroked the side. Tony raised an eyebrow.

"No offense, but it is just a computer."

"JUST a computer?!" Tim and Abby chorused in unison. "This isn't JUST a computer!"

Tony laughed. "You two are like something I saw in a movie one time ..."

"We made this!" Abby interrupted.

"Really?" Tony stopped his movie talk and looked genuinely interested.

"Yes. We salvaged it and then totally refurbished it and re-programed it with a special system that we are calling the TMAS4G101."

"What's that supposed to stand for?" Tony asked, chuckling over their unique title.

"Timothy McGee Abby Scuito for Gibbs 101."

"Wait - you two designed a computer program for GIBBS?!"

"Yep!" the two proud inventors/parents proclaimed together once again.

Tony broke into raucous laughter.

"You ARE geeks! The thought of Gibbs ever using a computer! That's hilarious!"

"Oh, get out!" a frustrated Abby huffed.

"Sure. I'll leave you alone with your newborn. Don't let it keep you up all night! Oh, wait, it probably already has! You guys need to do something less ... techy in your free time!"

"Just leave us," Tim groaned. "Let us enjoy our triumph, okay?"

"Okay!" Tony sang out as he exited. "Maybe I'll go talk to some normal people and breath some normal air and spend time in some normal sunlight ..."

Tim and Abby exchanged a glance as the door closed behind Tony.

"Like he's normal!" they laughed in unison.

...

"So, when will we give it to Gibbs?" Abby asked.

"Well, we planned this for his birthday," Tim replied, setting down his burger. The two were eating out together to come up with an "epic" plan to deliver the package to their boss.

"But his birthday isn't for another two months!"

"Yeah. We planned to finish it early. Please pass the ketchup."

"But Timmy! I can't wait that long! I want to surprise him now!"

"No, Abs! This is our birthday gift. Two months early is WAY too early!"

...

Later that night, the two creators were standing on Gibbs' doorstep with their wrapped gift.

"I can't believe that you talked me into this," Tim muttered.

Abby beamed at him. "You know that you love me! That's why!"

He rolled his eyes but shifted the package. "Let's go then."

Abby swung open the door to Gibbs' home with a flourish.

"Gibbs! Surprise! Hey, where are you?"

"Down here, Abs!" he hollered up the stairs.

"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday Gibbs - aka - Super Boss - aka Extra Dad - happy birthday to you!" Abby sang loudly, clomping in time with her boots.

"And many more!" Tim chimed in at the end.

"Thanks. Not for another two months." He went on sanding the boat.

"I know, I know, I know! How could I forget? I couldn't! I never forget my family's birthdays! Or my friends. You're both, Gibbs. Anyway, we are just practicing AND we brought you an early gift!"

"How about saving it?" Gibbs suggested, setting down his sandpaper to pay attention to the vibrating Abby Scuito.

"That's what I said," Tim said. "But she..."

"I insisted!" Abby chortled. "And we're not saving it, Gibbs. It's super useful and we want you to have it now. Right, McGee?"

"If he wants to save it, he cou..." Abby elbowed him in the ribs. "Omph! Abby! I could have dropped it!"

"Set it down," Gibbs said, motioning to the workbench.

Tim did. "Thanks."

"Open it! Open it! Open it!" Abby demanded, jumping up and down.

"Should I?" Gibbs asked Tim.

"Of course!" Abby butted in, dancing around to the other side of the workbench and looking at the box excitedly.

"You might as well," Tim acknowledged.

"Do it!" Abby demanded eagerly.

"Give me a second and I will," Gibbs gently scolded. The two gift-givers waited with bated breath while Gibbs opened the box. Then ...

"What is it?"

"A computer!" Abby squealed.

"Oh." Gibbs nodded calmly. This was a surprise. But then, what wasn't a surprise when he was dealing with his team members? One glance at the two young people in front of him confirmed the fact that they were not joking - this was a gift that they wanted him to have. Although he had never hid his distaste for technological devices, especially computers.

"Thanks," Gibbs told them. "What does it do?"

"What does it do?" Abby echoed incredulously.

"More, what _doesn't_ it do!" Tim proudly plugged in and started up the computer.

"We built it for you, Gibbs! We got the parts and then refurbished and reprogrammed it for you. It uses a new program -"

"TMAS4G101," Tim supplied.

"-which we created for you too!" Abby announced.

"It stands for 'Timothy McGee Abby Scuito for Gibbs easy program'," Tim informed the boss.

"I see," Gibbs muttered with a smile. He didn't see, not really, but they had obviously spent time ...

"It took four months for us to do!"

... Scratch that. It had taken them a LOT of time, and so this was one computer that he would not break.

Not on purpose. With all those buttons and his complete lack of knowledge on the subject, anything was possible.

And, oh, how he hated computers!

...

Two hours of demonstrations later, Gibbs finally succeeded in shooing his two kids home. He hadn't dared to ask them to spend the night because he was sure that they would continue the techno-babble-whatever until the wee hours of the morning and his brain could not absorb much more. They had lost him after how to turn on the screen. He hoped that his experience as an investigator would help him answer when Abby did one of her promised "video chats", whatever that was. McGee had shown him an online bidding auction website with parts for boats and another one for handheld tools. Then there had been email, restaurant reservations, photo albums, and even something about keeping track of taxes. He hadn't learned how to use any of them despite the willing teachers.

"I'm not built for this new world," he wearily told his boat as he picked up the sandpaper. The glowing screen of the computer seemed to watch him like a reproachful third eyeball left behind by his scientist and agent.

_A hammer could fix it, but unfortunately that's not an option._

_I hate computers._

...

"So did you give that computer to Gibbs yet?" Tony asked the next morning.

"Yes!" Abby, who was up from her lab for a short visit, cheered.

"What did he think?" Tony snorted with laughter.

"He liked it!" Abby said with confidence.

"Hopefully," Tim added. Tony laughed harder.

"You two are crazy!" he said, then turned to Gibbs who had just entered. "Hey, Boss! Been busy surfing the web before work this morning?"

"What's that supposed to mean, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

Tony opened his mouth. "It mea..."

"Have you called the LEOs for the transcripts of their interview with Knowles?" Gibbs interrupted, shifting through the papers on his desk.

"No ..."

"Then get busy on that."

Tony paused for a moment, obviously itching to continue his teasing mission, but Gibbs' raised his hand as if to slap the back of Tony's head. Although Gibbs was across the room, Tony still winced and ran to get busy.

"Were you using it?" Abby asked curiously.

"No time. Now get back to your work, Abs."

Abby frowned suspiciously and exchanged a discontented look with Tim before doing so.

...

Gibbs had actually tried to turn off the computer that morning - all through the night it had kept glowing. He figured that just yanking out the plug would be a bad idea. If it was a work computer he would not be so worried about the consequences of rough handling, but he really did not want to destroy the ... gift ... within the first 24 hours.

Oh, how he hated computers.

It was different than a work computer in other ways as well. The off button was obviously somewhere else because fifteen minutes later the screen was still as bright as ever and Gibbs was grumbling his way out the door with a cup of coffee.

...

"I hear that you received a new computer as an early birthday gift," Jenny told Gibbs as she paused by his desk.

"DiNozzo tell you?" Gibbs responded drily. Neither of the givers were in the room so he could speak candidly.

"No. Abby." The corners of Jenny's mouth quirked upward. "Have they never met you, Jethro?"

Gibbs shrugged "I don't know."

Jenny touched his hand for a second to get his full attention. He looked up at her.

"Just remember this - they love computers and they love you. They probably just wanted to share that same joy with you that they experience when they use their devices."

"Oh, they think it'll be helpful for me. I could see with one glance that they tried to make it up special for me. They even had stuff about boats on it. They just don't seem to realize that I've gotten along fine without one so far. I don't want that to change. Besides, I can't even shut the darn thing off!"

The two looked at each other, then laughed.

...

"Help me break this code, Tim. It's pretty tricky. For some reason I can't trace it back. Someone must have put a lot of time and effort into securing this location."

Tim looked over Abby's shoulder at the screen. From the three empty Caf-Pow!s next to her, he could tell that she had been working for a long time.

"It looks a little familiar," he mused.

"You think that you've seen it before too?" Abby asked. "I can't remember any case, but it does seem like I've seen it too."

"Here, let me help," Tim offered as he pulled up a chair.

...

"Where's McGee?" Gibbs asked Ziva and Tony as he strode into the bullpen.

Tony shrugged.

"I think he's helping Abby with a computer thing," Ziva offered, glancing up from her paperwork.

"Good." Gibbs emptied his coffee cup. "I'm going for a refill. I'll be looking for information when I get back."

He headed off, looking for caffeine.

_And while I'm at it, I might as well check on McGee and Abs._

...

Tim and Abby exchanged a fearful glance.

"So that's why it seemed ..."

"No wonder it was familiar since ..."

"Is Gibbs ...?"

"Yes."

"How did this happen?"

"I don't know. Just Gibbs is going to kill us!"

"Maybe. Tell me what's going on and then you'll find out."

Abby and Tim spun around, eyes wide and guilty.

"Gibbs!"

"Boss!"

"We didn't know ..." they said in unison.

"Yep. What did you find?"

Abby shifted nervously and looked at the floor. "You know that computer that we gave you?"

"Yes."

Abby looked at Tim and he took over.

"There's a bit of a problem, Boss."

Gibbs frowned stormily. He wanted answers - now!

"I've gathered that. What problem?"

Tim gulped. "Your ... new ... computer has been tied to our case. It is currently trying to hack into the bank where our suspect was shot. And as you obviously aren't hacking ..."

Abby blurted out, "There must have been a program that we left on it that is doing this!"

Gibbs' expression rivalled that of a thundercloud. Tim and Abby gulped. Never had that look been focused on them with such intent.

...

"Sit," Gibbs demanded, pointing to the two seats in the conference room. Tim immediately complied.

"But, Gibbs...!" Abby began, then quickly plunked herself into the other chair after a stern look from him. This was not her normal, calm Gibbs. This was not even her normal, annoyed Gibbs. This was a Gibbs that was mad about what she and Tim had done. She would have cried from shame if she had a second to catch her breath.

"Want to explain to me how this happened?"

"I wish we could!" Abby protested.

"The computer we salvaged must have been programed before we got it. There were so anomalies but we kind of overlooked them because we got it from the pawnbroker for such a good deal."

"Bring the broker in, McGee. Abby, my house. Shut off the machine and see if you can stop whatever it is that it's doing. I can't do it."

"Did you press the button right next to the screen with the on/off label?" Abby asked.

Gibbs' glare answered her.

"Okay. Yeah, if it isn't turning off there is a problem. I'll go fix that right away," Abby blubbered, backing away from the table and Gibbs nervously.

"Both of you, go!"

"Yes, Gibbs!"

"Going, Boss!"

...

It took two dozen "geeks", as labelled by Tony, to destroy the program that was still running on the computer when Abby brought it back to NCIS.

That was, they were finally able to destroy it after forty-eight hours of hard work.

"An imbedded virus must have merged with your program and started hacking the bank's system," one of the computer guys offered Tim and Abby helpfully. "I saw something like this last week. At least this time you caught it. Last time we were trying to recover $95,000 that had been stolen electronically."

"I've never seen this TMAS4G101 program before - does anyone know who created it?" asked another tech agent.

Tim and Abby exchanged mournful looks. "We did."

"YOU did?!" the others asked incredulously.

Tim and Abby sneaked out the room as soon as possible.

"My cheeks are so flushed! I can't remember ever being so embarrassed!" Abby exclaimed.

"It'll be worse if I have to discipline you both for not doing your jobs. Get back at it!" Gibbs demanded, stepping out of an interrogation room nearby.

"We stopped the program," Tim reported dutifully.

Gibbs nodded toward the hall.

"Then get a report on my desk of what happened. Abby, help him."

Abby and Tim skittered back to work as quickly as possible, giving Gibbs as large a berth as the narrow hallway would allow.

"Aren't you being a little hard on them? After all, they meant well. It isn't their faults if something went wrong," Jenny pointed out as she came up behind Gibbs.

Gibbs frowned. "I hate computers."

Jenny stood up as tall as she could with the assistance of her high heels and looked Gibbs in the eye. "And they love them. So deal with it! Get your head on straight, Jethro! Yes, this is an annoyance. Yes, this has been a bad two days trying to untangle the mess that they unwittingly created. But their hearts have remained the same. They made that computer for you because they care about you, and they have been working non-stop at trying to stop this virus because they care what you think of their work. They are like faithful slaves, Jethro! And what do you do?"

Gibbs shifted, not exactly liking how this "conversation" was sounding more and more like a lecture - that was aimed straight for his heart, which was not quite as hard as some believed it to be.

"Jen!" he protested.

But Jenny was not finished. "No, you listen, Leroy Jethro Gibbs! You're a hard leader and most of the time that is fine. Your team obviously thrives under your leadership, but what I've seen the last few days is not normal for any of you. Oh, you might pretend that you've been acting like your cantankerous, normal self, but it has been worse! WAY worse!"

Jenny emphasized her "WAY" with a little stomp. Gibbs rolled his eyes impatiently.

"I have things to do, Director."

"Like what? Go growl at McGee again, tearing down his confidence in the one area where his expertise helps you during most cases? Snap at Abby, who is already mad at herself for disappointing you? Head slap Tony if he tries to be funny, because he's trying to lighten the mood since he hates seeing you upset at other members of his team who he cares for like younger siblings? Bark at Ziva if she doesn't spout out answers quickly enough, reminding her of her father? Is that what 'things' you want to do, Agent Gibbs? Because we both know that, although discipline and strictness is needed sometimes, praise and affection can motivate just as much. Usually you reward them a few times a day, but I haven't seen or heard a single bit of praise these last few days, and I highly doubt that you're saving it for when I'm not there!"

Gibbs tried to take a step away, but Jenny grabbed his arm and pulled him back toward her.

"You are not dismissed, Agent Gibbs! Why ... are you ... ?!"

...

"He's coming!" Tony hissed to his co-workers. Abby and Tim somehow managed to type even faster than they had been doing so. Ziva grabbed her telephone and began a fake conversation - the others all knew that she was just trying to avoid speaking to their boss. No one blamed her.

Gibbs entered the bullpen more slowly than normal. Tony was as far away from Gibbs as possible without actually leaving his desk. Ziva was having what was obviously a faked call. And Tim and Abs - they were typing as if their lives depended on it.

_They probably think that they do._

Gibbs took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy. He suddenly felt overwhelming compassion and pride for each of kids when they had come to him at some point or another and admitted that they had made a mistake and needed to be forgiven. It had been a long time since he had been in a position where he needed to ask for someone's forgiveness. He had forgotten how hard it was to do so.

"I'm sorry."

Tim and Abby jerked their heads up, their mouths hanging open in identical "o"s. Tony nearly fell backwards in his chair. Ziva actually dropped her phone.

_This doesn't make it any easier._

"I've been a lot more harsh with you all lately. This wasn't your faults, Abs, McGee."

Everyone continued looking at him with glazed eyes.

Gibbs forced himself to walk over to Abby and McGee. He could see the signs of tears on Abby's face and the guilt in Tim's eyes. He sympathized. He had just been washing his face to hide the fact that there had been tears in his eyes after realizing how unfeeling he had been.

"Listen - it was NOT your fault."

The two looked at him with identical looks of shock turning to relief. Gibbs straightened and looked around the room.

"Time to go home."

Tony was the first to venture, "Really?"

"But we are still working on our report," Tim mumbled, shrinking back in his chair again, disappointment clear.

"It can wait."

Abby started beaming, the difference like that of turning on a light bulb. "Really, Gibbs, really?"

"Yep. And I'm doing barbeque if any of you are interest..."

He got cut off by a flying Abby hug.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again in her ear.

"We all forgive you, don't we, guys?"

Gibbs was grateful that Abby was not in revenge mood - she was probably hoping for a Caf-Pow! on the way home and he would buy her two - but he was anxious about the impending responses from the others.

There was no need to worry. Tim and Tony chimed in instantly.

"Yes, no problem" Tim seconded.

"Of course. Forget about it," Tony added.

Everyone turned to Ziva. Her knowledge of "forgiveness" was dubious at best. She licked her lips and replied - quietly and a little hesitantly, but she replied.

"You forgive us, Gibbs. How would we not be able to forgive you?"

"Ziva's right," Abby said, kissing Gibbs' cheek like he so often did when he forgave her for some mistake on her part.

Gibbs smiled gratefully as his kids moved into a tight circle around him, embracing him with their forgiving hearts and eager smiles.

"Then let's head out."

And together they did - as a family.

But no one - not Tim, not Abby, and most definitely not Gibbs - was sad that the computer was left behind in the evidence garage.

...

**I hope that you enjoyed! Make sure to check by fiftyshadeswritergal's page today to read her version if you have not done so already. Her version is very different - and I love it! Any writers (or potential writers) are welcome to take a spin with this prompt too - just please let fiftyshadeswritergal and I know about it when you post so that we can read and review! :D **

**Have a great weekend!**


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